Hitherto, image capturing apparatuses such as digital still cameras that capture images of photographic subjects such as people and record the captured images exist as information recording apparatuses that record content. Also, with the use of a network such as the Internet and recording media, transfer of the captured images recorded by the image capturing apparatuses to people other than those who have captured the images has been widely done. Further, making the captured images recorded by the image capturing apparatuses public by utilizing Web sites on the Internet or the like has also been widely done.
Also, in recent years, a digital still camera that obtains position information using GPS (Global Positioning System), adds the position information to a captured image, and records the captured image has been proposed (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-261704 (FIG. 1)). When position information is added to a captured image in this manner, a user who has obtained this captured image can be informed of the place where the image capturing of the captured image has been done.
For example, in the case where image capturing is done at a user's home using the above-described conventional art, personal information such as the address of the user's home may be added as position information to a captured image. Here, personal information such as the home address is information that is undesired to be revealed to people other than the user's acquaintances. However, in the case where a captured image to which personal information is added as position information is made public by utilizing a Web site or the like, the position information added to the captured image becomes accessible to third persons.
Therefore, a content data processing apparatus that sends, when sending an image file to which personal information that is undesired to be revealed to other people is added, the image file after removing the personal information with a user operation has been proposed (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-88754 (FIG. 1)).
According to the above-described conventional art, for example, in the case where a captured image to which position information that is undesired to be revealed to other people is added is to be made public by utilizing a Web site or the like, the position information can be removed with a user operation, and then the captured image can be made public. Therefore, the position information added to the captured image is prevented from being revealed to other people.
However, with the above-described conventional art, every time the user sends a captured image, it is necessary for the user to individually determine whether or not to delete position information added to the captured image and to perform a deletion operation. Therefore, there is a problem that a determination involved in determining whether or not to perform deletion, and a deletion operation are bothersome. Also, in the case where the user forgets to perform a deletion operation when sending a captured image, the captured image to which position information that is undesired to be revealed to people other than the user's acquaintances may be made public.
To this end, it is an object of the present invention to prevent position information regarding personal information from being revealed to other people when content is utilized.